During my most impressionable years, like many others I fell under the spell of a most unusual man: my mother called him a crank but he was simply a harmless eccentric.
I first met him around 1946 when I was 12 and Albert was about 53. He held a position with the Hoover vacuum cleaner company and always carried a penknife inscribed ibaisaic - It beats as it sweeps as it cleans - the company motto. I imagine that he could have been a very irritating colleague to work alongside. He was above average height, sparely built with black beady eyes, a slight stoop, greying Brylcreemed hair parted well away from the crown and whilst usually softly spoken, he had the most coarse singing voice imaginable. He reckoned that he knew the meaning of every English word, but who would dare put him to the test?

I first came across him when I was in the choir at St. Mark's, Harlesden, London NW10 when it was announced that for one Sunday only, we would not be needed as the singing was being taken over by Albert Bolton and his girls choir for a Children’s Festival. This choir was taken from place to place, very much the property of its founder. We lads were horrified at being turned out of our choir stalls, by girls too as until then, only men and boys had sat in them, but we were secretly envious of their confident voices.

Later, after George Vidler retired as organist and choirmaster, Albert took up the post. Change was rapid and dramatic. Firstly his pet hate, the red New Cathedral Psalter was swiftly banished. He (rightly) contended that the crude accenting of certain words enabling the irregular text to fit metrical chants was unnatural and he wanted a return to the black Old Cathedral Psalter. Exceptionally, he was allowed to address the congregation during Evening Prayer. With arms waving about as he demonstrated the clumsiness of the New as opposed to the fluidity of the Old, he sang several examples in his raucous voice much to the amusement of us boys. He rapidly introduced a lot of new music - throwing out perennial favourites such as John Stainer's Easter anthem, Ye shall dwell in the land which I gave to your Fathers, in favour of Vincent Novello's Like as the Hart desireth the Waterbrooks and Mozart's Out of the deep.

These changes caused a lot of dissatisfaction. Some of the boys left. Eric Gregory from Furness Road and his brother Ted who were head boys went. Eric said he didn't like Albert's organ playing. "Too staccato" he called it. Girls were introduced into the choir. We boys were indignant of course, moreso as we had to wear ruffs, but somewhat mollified as they had to wear black birettas. There was much disapproval of these high church practises as there was over the singing of Mozart's Ave Verum Corpus, because Latin was not then welcomed in our low Church of England tradition. Later we were to tackle the then unfashionable The Crucifixion, also by Stainer. Albert worked us very hard, but the other side of his character showed in the 10 minute break we had during summer choir practices when we were allowed to run around the small churchyard, causing displeasure to some neighbours.

There was a scene late one evening at Friday choir practice. Albert had warned us that we would need to stay on much later than the usual 9 pm as there was a lot of music to rehearse. At around 10 pm some mothers suddenly appeared, Mrs Finnemore accusing him of not giving notice that their children would be home late. He rightly pointed out that we had all been asked to warn our parents of the exceptionally long practice.

Albert's house at 36 Hardinge Road, Kensal Rise, London was full of interesting things such as a cuckoo clock, glass-fronted bookcases and the large collection of books and music which was mostly to do with his position as an amateur organist and choirmaster. He was very proud that on marriage, his wife Elsie brought a dowry with her. They had a permanent lodger Ivy Kefford who maybe had been 'bombed out' during WWII. Both ladies were amply proportioned and many wrongly believed them to be sisters. Elsie had a bright soprano voice, whilst Ivy's was a rich velvety contralto. They sang with Albert everywhere he went. The family pet Tiggles was the largest cat I've ever seen.

Whilst he had a strange sense of fun and was an occasional practitioner of 'a day in bed' which he believed was a great pick-me-up, his life was grounded on the morality and etiquette of a bygone age - the Protestant work ethic. This was accompanied by a good deal of the sanctimoniousness of the Victorian age, readily found in children’s books and churchyard monumental inscriptions of the time but which now tend to grate. Things he disapproved of would earn scorn or sarcasm - yet he found humour in the Willesden Lane cafe which, outrageously for the time, called itself 'Grubland'. He would stand up if a woman came into the room, even if she was but 12 years old and would always raise his hat to ladies when out in the street. When I told him my father was a Freemason he recounted how he'd once lent some money to a Mason which was not repaid. "When I became a man I left the Boy Scouts", he said dismissively. But he could also be very sympathetic, carefully listening to lovesick youths having problems with someone they were 'sweet on' (to use his phrase), gently advising and trying to help as a go-between.

Despite all they had achieved during the war, he hated the BBC because he strongly disapproved of the way they once broadcast some of Handel's music, so his small radio was never used by anyone except Elsie and only then when he was out.
Handel was one of his heroes and he went to the British Museum specially to copy out choruses from his Occasional Oratorio which we sang. On the wall of his dining room was a framed original letter written by another hero, General Gordon. It was glazed back and front so that both sides could be read.

Albert had a very fair hand and he used it to copy out music. His invention, a knife handle into which he'd wedged four steel knitting needles was used to draw the lines of the musical stave onto a stencil and he would then inscribe the music. This was reproduced and bound up neatly into cardboard folders, one for each choir member, and woe betide anyone who made the covers dirty. Everyone had their own set of books and he was insistent that the only correct way to turn a page was to gently rub the thumb up the right-hand side of the paper and then use the index finger to lift the page.

A favourite story of his was how he found a discrepancy in different copies of the Book of Common Prayer. In one of the canticles for Morning Prayer, it read '... out of the hands of our enemies', the other had the singular 'hand'. He wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury, querying why he allowed this anomaly. Albert was invited to Westminster Abbey (the muniment room probably), and a metal bound chest holding a copy of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer was opened up for him to inspect. The final letter of 'hands' had been scored through. As a special privilege he was allowed to hold the volume for a few moments - a treasured memory. Being the pedant he was, 'hand' was what we had to sing.

Albert and Elsie loved children for they had none of their own. and often organised parties and outings for us. For some years following the War, most items of food were still rationed and even afterwards many items were still regarded as, luxuries. At one of the Boltons’ parties a large mainly white ice cream cake was on the table, something none of us had ever seen let alone tasted before. One visit was to a Mission church at Ladbroke Grove where the Pastor was a Mr Lavery with his strong Ulster accent. We had tea and cakes there and afterwards sang in the Hall. A visit to Chalgrove, Buckinghamshire was arranged one summer where we were to sing in the church, have a picnic and play games. I was a regular visitor to Albert's house and was especially interested in his workroom, the small bedroom of their house. Just before the Chalgrove outing he got out a box of blank cartridges and produced a revolver, inserted a cartridge and fired it. The sound was ear-splitting. This was the starting pistol to be used for the games. The box contained about 8 small live bullets pressed into a wooden board. He explained that his duties at Hoover in Regent Street, London, included going to the bank each week to collect the wages. I queried whether he would ever actually use it and have never forgotten how he icily replied that he would - and that he'd shoot to kill. The day of the outing arrived off we all went by coach, sung and had our games and picnic. On the way home, my brother and I were fooling about, he lunged at me, I dodged backwards and my head hit a coach window - which broke. Albert was not pleased but he reserved his anger. The hole was patched up with cardboard.

Another of his favourite stories was of a visit to the Caledonian Market in north London where the offer he made for a vase was refused by the stallholder. It went something like this:-

"I'd sooner break it than sell at that price."
"You'd best do just that as I'll not pay more"
"I shall break it then!"

And there was his telling the story of Cardinal Newman's hymn Lead Kindly Light written before he left the Church of England to become a Roman Catholic, or to use Albert's words, 'before going over to the other side'. The facts are a bit awry since the hymn was penned in 1835 but it was not until 1845 that Newman changed his allegiance. But such was the personality of our organist and choirmaster that we believed every word he said.

Albert said that as he moved away he heard something smash on the ground behind him, but he deliberately walked on, not wanting to give the man the satisfaction of seeing him turn round.

He was very interested in the usual mysteries and outrages of history like the Marie Celeste and the Black Hole of Calcutta. Because of his fascination with perpetual motion he bought one of the ducks which would tip forward, the beak dipping into a glass of water. After a few seconds, the duck sprang upright for a while, then it would tip forward again - endlessly.

When Prince Charles was born, he made a wooden model of a steam engine for a present, for he was a skilled metal and woodworker, the work all being done in his tiny workshop. Albert loved to demonstrate to anyone interested, his accurate scale working model of a Merryweather fire engine complete with extending ladders and its very realistic hoses made from white shoelaces. This won him the first prize at an exhibition Hoovers held after the War of their employees' work. It was an upright washing machine which were then just coming on to the market.

Time moved on, and so did Albert who had a disagreement with the vicar, (not for the first time as he'd previously been at Twyford Abbey, West London and at Kilburn). I left the choir to do National Service and he went to All Souls church at Harlesden. Some years later I called on him one evening, but he was clearly irritated by my unexpected arrival. The spell was broken.

He smoked a lot - gaspers he called them - maybe the cause of his death, after which, there was a memorial service for him at All Souls, attended by a great number of people. So many knew him, but I had only one response from a letter to the Willesden Chronicle in 1980 asking for information. It was from Cliff Starkey of College Road, Kensal Rise who once knew Albert well. Surprisingly Cliff confided, "A good pianist, but I didn't like his playing. Too staccato!"